Cars keep crossing yellow centre lines to pass cyclists under Japan's new rule, so Tokyo police will repaint half of the city's yellow lines white. I counted 1,487 comments: 94 to 6, and 31 percent of the vote went to one comment, the one I had shared on X, saying cyclists squeezing past stopped cars should keep a metre too. Comments asking why the lines were yellow in the first place took 29 percent. Comments that got the law right took 0.7 percent

What happened

At 11:37 on Thursday 10 September 2026, FNN Prime Online published this story on Yahoo! News Japan. Since an amendment to the Road Traffic Act took effect in April, there has been a rule for cars passing bicycles. FNN found that drivers trying to keep their distance from cyclists were crossing the solid yellow centre line, which forbids crossing to overtake, and so committing a different offence, one case after another. The Tokyo Metropolitan Police have been surveying the roughly 1,700 kilometres of yellow centre line in Tokyo and plan to repaint at least about half of it as white line that may be crossed, over several years. In Nakano ward every yellow line is to go white. The National Police Agency, which oversees all prefectural police, said it was aware of complaints but had no figures, and that it had told forces to consider lifting the restriction, which means repainting, where problems arise.

A little about the lines and the rule, for readers outside Japan. The line down the middle of a Japanese road can be broken white, solid white or solid yellow. Solid yellow is a road marking that means: no crossing to the right-hand side in order to overtake. Article 18, paragraph 3 of the Road Traffic Act, in force from 1 April this year, says that when a car passes on the right of a bicycle, other than when overtaking it, and there is not enough room between them, the car must proceed at a safe speed that matches the gap. A leaflet from the National Police Agency says that a gap of at least about one metre is safe, that where a metre cannot be kept the car should travel at about 20 to 30 kilometres an hour, and that these are guidelines only. The article says drivers are required to leave at least a metre; the text of the law contains no figure.

Then there is the question of whether a white line really may be crossed. Article 17, paragraph 5, item 4 of the Road Traffic Act lists, among the cases in which a vehicle may cross to the right, the following.

当該道路の左側部分の幅員が六メートルに満たない道路において、他の車両を追い越そうとするとき（当該道路の右側部分を見とおすことができ、かつ、反対の方向からの交通を妨げるおそれがない場合に限るものとし、道路標識等により追越しのため右側部分にはみ出して通行することが禁止されている場合を除く。）

In English: on a road whose left-hand half is less than six metres wide, when overtaking another vehicle, provided the right-hand side can be seen clearly and oncoming traffic will not be obstructed, and except where signs or markings forbid crossing to overtake. So on a narrow road, once the yellow is painted white, this clause applies and a driver may cross to overtake. That is what the article means by a white line that may be crossed.

When I read the article, this is what I thought. I shared the first-placed comment, quoted below, on X as a typical example of a licence holder who does not know the Road Traffic Act, and I wrote this:

そもそも黄色ラインは何であるのかが前提なのに目先のけんで上っ面の回答をする車の免許持ちが多いですわね。

そしてその対象が自転車。自転車はすり抜けじゃなく追い抜きなのに学習して国家資格を持ってる人間がこの低レベル。だから事故も違反も減らないし、"流れ"や"ルール"や"プラス15km\hまではOK"などあいまいで自分主義な違反前提の社会になるんですわ。

自転車が走ってる、前からも車が来る、白い線に変える、そしたら無理に追い抜くor自転車のすれすれを追い越しではなく追い抜くよ。１００％、道路交通法でこういう時の規則が今年決まったばかりなのにやるよぜったい。違反運転。だってばれないし事故らなければ問題ないしそれで自転車が110番しても動画があっても相手に何もないしね。

In English: the whole premise is what the yellow line is for, yet so many licence holders give shallow answers about the thing in front of them. And the target is bicycles. Passing a cyclist is overtaking, not squeezing past, yet people who studied for a national licence are at this level. That is why neither accidents nor offences go down, and why we have a society built on breaking the rules, with vague, self-serving ideas like going with the flow or fifteen over being fine. A cyclist is riding, a car is coming the other way, the line is changed to white, and drivers will force their way past, or skim the cyclist. One hundred percent, they will do it, even though the rule for exactly this was made this year. Because nobody gets caught, and if there is no crash there is no problem, and even if the cyclist calls the police with video, nothing happens to the driver. I went on to write that the police are useless.

So my reading had four parts. One: the premise is what the yellow line is for, yet most licence holders answer shallowly. Two: passing a cyclist is overtaking, not squeezing past, and people do not make that distinction. Three: once the lines are white, everyone will cut close, because nobody gets caught. Four: the police are useless. I counted how much of each the thread wrote.

94 to 6, and it is the thread at 19 hours and 24 minutes, 1,487 comments

Across 1,487 top-level comments, the I relate button was pressed 31,431 times and the hmm button 2,157 times: 94 to 6. The last two notes, 0042 and 0041, were 95 to 5; before that 0039 was 85 to 15, 0038 was 74 to 26 and 0037 was 92 to 8, so this is the third most lopsided of the last five. I counted at 7:01 the next morning, 19 hours and 24 minutes after the article went up. The article showed 1,957 comments in total; 1,487 of them were top-level comments rather than replies.

The votes were even more top-heavy than in the previous note, 0042, where the first-placed comment took 18 percent; here it took 31. The top 10 comments took 79 percent of the vote, the top 20 took 89 percent, and the first-placed comment alone took 9,799 presses, 31 percent. Of the 1,487 comments, 944, 63 percent, had no I relate at all, and 1,229, 83 percent, had one or none. In 243 comments, 16 percent, hmm outnumbered I relate.

First place is the comment I shared: "cyclists squeezing past should keep a metre too", 9,799 presses

First place, 9,799 presses, 31 percent of the vote. This is the comment I shared on X. It also drew 659 hmm, the most in the thread, 31 percent of all the hmm presses. It is the comment most people agreed with and the comment most people disagreed with.

Comments asking for the same thing, a metre rule or other restrictions on cyclists squeezing past, numbered 22 including this one. The other 21 took 10 presses between them. The word for squeezing past appeared in 22 comments, and 99 percent of their vote is the first-placed comment. The word for overtaking appeared in 295 comments; the word for passing alongside, in 113.

The second part of my reading was that passing a cyclist is overtaking and not squeezing past, and that people do not make the distinction. Comments that drew the line between overtaking and passing numbered eight and took 2 presses. As the National Police Agency leaflet says, the new rule applies other than when overtaking; it is about passing.

The comment in 557th place, with no presses and one hmm, said that the police probably lack the knowledge too, that driving along over the yellow line and crossing it for an instant are different things, and asked whether people are treating overtaking and passing alongside as the same. This writer also says that overtaking a slow bicycle should be allowed across a yellow line; I could not find that in the text of the law. The highest-placed of the eight comments that made the distinction was 213th, with 2 presses.

Second place, 4,072 presses. Leaving aside the first-placed comment, this is the core of the thread. Comments saying the line was yellow for a reason, that it was yellow because it is dangerous there, that the police should explain why, numbered 160 and took 8,741 presses, 28 percent of the vote. Besides second place, the fourth-placed comment, 2,078 presses, there must have been a reason for the yellow line, can it really be changed so easily; the seventh, 1,042, you forbade crossing because it was dangerous, and now you repaint the line white and say crossing is fine, how does that square with all the fines you collected there; and the 12th, 394, 14th, 350, 15th, 326 and 16th, 315, are all here. Comments saying white lines will bring head-on collisions and car-on-car overtaking numbered 111, 8.3 percent, and the Japanese phrase for putting the cart before the horse appeared in 52. Without double counting, 275 comments, 9,242 presses, 29 percent of the vote, 18 percent of the 1,487 comments.

The first part of my reading was that the premise is what the yellow line is for, and that most licence holders answer shallowly about the thing in front of them. The first-placed comment did. But the thread as a whole, once you set that one comment aside, was asking about the premise.

Fix the law instead, 161 comments and 13 percent; the order is backwards, 303 comments

Eighteenth place, 231 presses. Comments saying do not repaint the lines, fix the law, add one line exempting the passing of bicycles, use a supplementary sign, numbered 161 and took 4,165 presses, 13 percent of the vote. The fifth-placed comment, 1,894 presses, said that before the law took effect they should have declared that crossing an orange line to pass a bicycle would not count, or repainted in advance; the sixth, 1,226, said they should have surveyed real roads first and simply added a proviso, this does not apply when passing a bicycle is unavoidable.

Comments saying the order is backwards, fix the roads before changing the law, everyone knew this would happen, numbered 303 and took 2,819 presses, 9.0 percent. The eighth-placed comment, 843 presses, called it a case of making the rope after the thief has arrived and said senior officials at the supervising ministry should take responsibility; the 11th, 401, said repainting solves nothing and law and infrastructure have to be planned together. Fix the law and the order is backwards together come to 441 comments, 21.7 percent of the vote, 30 percent of the 1,487 comments.

Comments saying the roads are too narrow, that the rule does not fit Japan's roads, that cars have grown wider, numbered 170 and took 9,597 presses, 31 percent; the second, third and seventh placed comments are here. Third place, 2,529 presses, is a writer who says they drive a route bus in the provinces.

Third place, 2,529 presses. Nine comments came from people who said they drive for a living, buses or lorries, and they took 8.1 percent of the vote, almost all of it this one. Comments about traffic jams and crawling along behind a bicycle numbered 107, 14 percent.

"A solid white line is stricter", 76 comments and 1 percent of the vote; eight of them mentioned the road width

Comments saying a solid white line is stricter than yellow, that it forbids crossing altogether, that only a broken line would help, that the article has it wrong, numbered 76 and took 351 presses, 1.1 percent of the vote, 5.1 percent of the 1,487 comments. As I wrote above, Article 17, paragraph 5, item 4 says that on a road whose left-hand half is under six metres wide, a driver may cross to the right to overtake if the view is clear and no oncoming traffic is obstructed, except where a yellow line forbids it. Two comments, in 21st and 267th place, say the rule is to paint solid white lines on wide roads, six metres a side or more. On such roads that clause does not apply, which is why a solid white line looks like a no-crossing line. Paint a narrow road's yellow line white and the clause applies. Of the 76 comments, eight, 179 presses, went as far as the road width. The 21st-placed comment, 156 presses, said the yellow solid line presumably marked roads of six metres, three metres a side, where light vehicles could be overtaken safely without crossing, that wide roads get a white solid line, and that a narrow road being repainted would need a broken white line; the law and the publicity were both half-baked, it said. The other 68 comments, 172 presses, left the width out and simply said white is stricter.

"Only the one metre has taken on a life of its own": 20 comments, 0.1 percent, said the metre is a guideline

Eightieth place, 10 presses. Comments saying the metre is a guideline and not a duty, that slowing down is enough where the gap cannot be kept, that the article's word "required" goes too far, numbered 20 and took 37 presses, 0.1 percent of the vote. The highest-placed was 74th, with 12 presses. Add the eight comments that distinguished overtaking from passing and the eight that explained the six-metre rule, remove the overlap, and the comments that stated the law as written number 36, 218 presses, 0.7 percent of the vote, 2.4 percent of the 1,487 comments. Comments containing the words for the Road Traffic Act or citing an article of it numbered 89, 2.7 percent, but most of those were saying amend the act, or the act is full of holes.

Comments pointing out that other people misunderstand the law numbered 35, 0.9 percent. Comments admitting the writer had not known numbered six, 5 presses. The comment in 200th place, 2 presses, put it this way.

Two presses, two hmm. The one comment that said what I said got 2 presses.

"The patrol car did not react": 28 comments said they cross too, 28 said police cars do

The comment in 546th place, with no presses, described overtaking a bicycle on a yellow-lined road with a patrol car right behind: right indicator on, slow right down, cross the yellow line with a gap of over a metre, left indicator on, back into the lane. Crossing to overtake is an offence, the writer said, but the patrol car did not react, so the police must understand too.

Comments saying the writer crosses the yellow line too, that everyone does, that nobody gets caught, that it is fine as long as the police are not watching, numbered 28 and took 169 presses, 0.5 percent of the vote. The highest-placed was 23rd, 141 presses: the writer followed a Kanagawa police car soon after the change and watched it indicate, cross the line and overtake a cyclist with over a metre to spare, so assumes it is fine since the police did it, and says the rules should simply be run differently rather than the lines repainted. Comments saying they had seen police cars cross the yellow line, that there is video, numbered 28 and took 299 presses, 1.0 percent; besides the 23rd, the 25th-placed comment, 133 presses, there are videos of patrol cars crossing the yellow line too, is here. Buses do it too, six comments. Together, 60 comments, 384 presses, 1.2 percent of the vote, 4.0 percent of the 1,487 comments.

The third part of my reading was that once the lines are white everyone will cut close, because nobody gets caught. That showed up as these 60 comments, 4.0 percent. Most of the thread did not say we will break the rule. It said fix the law, the order is backwards.

Crack down on cyclists, 176 comments; put them back on the pavement, 128

Comments demanding enforcement against cyclists, that riding against traffic, ignoring lights and riding while on the phone be dealt with first, that cyclists face rules too, numbered 176 excluding the first-placed comment and took 1,127 presses, 3.6 percent of the vote. Comments saying put bicycles back on the pavement, that making them ride on the road was the mistake, numbered 128 and took 2,181 presses, 6.9 percent; the ninth-placed comment, 842 presses, bicycles on the road side of the pavement, that was all that was needed, is here. Together, excluding the first-placed comment, 282 comments, 9.0 percent of the vote, 19 percent of the 1,487.

Comments calling it a waste of tax money and asking what repainting will cost numbered 265, 3,685 presses, 12 percent; comments suspecting vested interests, collusion or jobs for retired police officials, 56, 0.5 percent. Comments calling the rule a desk-bound theory made by people who do not drive and do not know the streets numbered 102, 663 presses, 2.1 percent; comments using words for useless, idiot or fool, 139, 155 presses, 0.5 percent; together, 226 comments, 808 presses, 2.6 percent. Comments about the new 30 kilometre an hour limit on residential streets numbered 41; about electric scooters and mopeds, 32; naming a party or politician, 44, 0.3 percent. Comments welcoming the repainting and asking for it outside Tokyo too numbered 36, 0.2 percent.

Although the story is about neither an arrest nor an accident, 18 comments, 68 presses, 0.2 percent, brought up foreigners, mostly to say that the people cycling on pavements are foreign workers. I give the count and quote none of them.

Checking my own reading

That the premise is what the yellow line is for, and that most licence holders give shallow answers about the thing in front of them. About the first-placed comment, the thread agreed with me: its 659 hmm were the most in the thread, 31 percent of all the hmm presses, and they landed on that one comment. But the thread as a whole was not shallow. Comments asking about the premise, why was it yellow, was it not yellow because it is dangerous there, numbered 275 and took 29 percent of the vote, and they are the second, fourth and seventh placed comments. As for "most": by votes it was one comment, by count it was 22.

That people who studied for a national licence are at this level. The part about not knowing the law showed up like this. Comments that stated the law as written numbered 36 and took 0.7 percent of the vote. Of the 76 comments that called the white line stricter, eight went as far as the six-metre rule. Twenty comments, 0.1 percent, said the metre is a guideline, and the article itself said drivers were required to keep it. One comment, 2 presses, said that hardly any licence holder would score 70 percent on a test of the act.

That passing a cyclist is overtaking, not squeezing past. Eight comments, 2 presses, drew that distinction. The word for squeezing past appeared in 22 comments, and 99 percent of their vote is the first-placed comment. The thread used the word for overtaking in 295 comments and the word for passing alongside in 113.

That one hundred percent of drivers will do it, because nobody gets caught. Comments saying the writer crosses the line too and it is fine if nobody sees numbered 28, 0.5 percent; police cars do it too, 28, 1.0 percent; together, 60 comments, 4.0 percent. Not one hundred percent. Most of the thread said fix the law, 161 comments and 13 percent, or the order is backwards, 303 comments and 9.0 percent. Not we will break it, but fix the system.

That the police are useless. Words for useless, idiot or fool appeared in 139 comments, 0.5 percent; desk-bound theory by people who do not drive, in 102, 2.1 percent. The anger pointed less at the police than at whoever wrote the law, and at the narrowness of the roads.

So the score is two right and two wrong. That the first-placed comment is shallow, and that many people do not know the law: right, and the proof is that the comments which got the law right took 0.7 percent of the vote. That the whole thread is shallow, and that everyone will cut close as a matter of course: wrong. The thread asked why the line was yellow and said fix the law. In the previous note, 0042, 61 percent of the vote was aimed at the police. Here, comments insulting the police or officials took 0.5 percent. The same Japanese comment section either attacks the police or asks for the law to be fixed, depending on whether the story is a crime or a system.